My name is: Otis
I came from: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Now I live in: County Durham
My favourite things are: Snoozing, the beach, cardboard boxes/the recycling bin in general, chomping bones, every dog I’ve ever met

Otis’s story

We decided to adopt a dog in 2021 after a potential adoption from a family friend fell through when they decided to keep her. We were heart broken and I felt there was now a massive dog shaped hole in our life. I came across Underdog International on Instagram and fell in love with Otis (previously Odie) on their website. His signature sad eyes had me sold.

Leanne from Underdog was very honest with us from the start. She explained that Otis had been very nervous in the shelter and very stand-offish with his UK fosterer, did we still want to go ahead? We couldn’t say no and took a chance on him.

Otis wouldn’t let us touch him for the first few weeks but liked to have us sit with him in the garden in the depths of December. Gradually, Otis warmed up to us and started to learn that scritches weren’t too bad and we were decent people.

The first three months of life with Otis were really difficult. We knew adopting a rescue dog would be hard but not this hard. He paid no attention to us on walks, he wouldn’t relax and rest in the house and when he did sleep, any slight noise or movement woke him up. He barked and bit our toes any time we tried to sit down and relax. No amount of stuffed kongs, chews, walks or mental stimulation kept him busy or wore him out. We started to question if it had been a mistake to adopt but we just couldn’t bear the thought of giving up this terror of a boy.

We shared our concerns with Leanne who gave us lots of advice and arranged a chat with one of the volunteer behaviourists at Underdog. Eventually we had a behaviourist come to visit Otis and she helped us to ‘shape’ his behaviour and teach him how to relax and decompress. Now we struggle to get him out of bed on a morning because he loves snoozing so much. He’s very clever when he wants to be and picks up commands pretty quickly. However, we’ve struggled with his impulse control around other dogs and animal scents which has affected his recall. For safety (and sanity) we keep Otis on a 10m long line whilst we’re working on this with a trainer.

Hardly a walk goes by without someone asking about his breed. If I had £1 for every time someone said ‘he’s definitely got Collie in him’, I’d be able to leave work and adopt all the underdogs. We’ve recently been in contact with his brother’s adopters. It’s been nice to share war stories about the two little terrors. They’ve sent off a DNA test so we’re hoping to find out if he ‘definitely has collie in him’ or not (we don’t think he does).

Otis has come on leaps and bounds in the 10 months he’s lived with us. He is still nervous of new people and busy places. It’s a fine balance between exposing him to new experiences and not overwhelming him, but he is getting more confident by the day. We’ve already had lots of adventures with Otis and couldn’t imagine a life without him.

- Sam & Joe